


1,674 Days

by ronniedae



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10530216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronniedae/pseuds/ronniedae
Summary: (or; how long does a love last?)They fell together as if they were never meant to be parted. It's as easy as the first step on to the ice; crisp, sudden and more natural than breathing - as if man was never meant to walk on land and instead live on frozen water.Falling away is not as effortless.





	

**1,674 days (or; how long does a love last?)**

**\--**

It's been 118 days since he last saw Otabek; freckles peppered across his cheeks and hair glinting in the cruel Almaty sun. The words fell from his lips like velvet; they’d spent a summer trapped between his tongue and teeth. “I love you.” Otabek smiled, soft and subtle as ever, and held him closer. “I love you too.”

Nearly four months later he’s pacing around the baggage claim of St. Petersburg. Yuri keeps flicking between Instagram and texts that read _I love you_. An elderly woman remarks that he’s wearing a groove into the floor. He glares somewhat in her direction, too busy burning holes in the arrival board to pay her much attention. He debates distracting himself with the eighth coffee of the day when he is suddenly enveloped. He wonders how anyone that just spent ten hours in economy class can still smell like rosemary and motor oil.

Yuri stops caring, though, when their lips meet as _hello_ , and more _I love yous_ are left lingering in the space between them.

\--

“Why have you never come to Japan with me?”

It’s almost a statement as opposed to a question, causing Otabek to raise his brow.

“You’ve never invited me?”

They’re leaned up against opposite sides of the sofa, legs intertwined and buried underneath Otabek’s university work. Yuri’s face is scrunched in confusion.

“Come to Japan with me?”

It’s an actual question this time, and Otabek smiles.

“Of course.”

A little less than 3 days later, they’re back in St. Petersburg airport. Yuri is gripping Otabek’s hand running towards the gate; they’re late but he’s laughing, so it’s okay. Nothing ever seems to matter when they’re together.

\--

At the onsen, Yuri comes to life in a way Otabek has never seen him before. Yuri’s happy here, in this knitted together family that Otabek realises, for the first time, that he is a part of too.

It’s late. Far past midnight here and the sudden shift in time zone has them both wide awake; bellies full of katsudon and blissfully melting in the hot springs. Yuri’s leaning up against the side, tracing his finger through the gritty sand. They’re lit by nothing more than moonlight and the sprinkles of stars. The air is sharp but heavy, waiting for something to break the silence. So Otabek does.

“Marry me?”

It’s almost a statement as opposed to a question.

 

* * *

 

 

Their marriage is like bubble. The kind you see glinting in the daylight; pearlescent and perfect. It takes 243 days for this bubble to pop, and when it does, it’s deafening. Yuri has slammed four doors already, six, if you include the cupboards in the kitchen. They’ve been arguing so long that neither of them can remember why they started. The sun has gone down and the streetlamps have turned on; their cat is too scared to beg to be fed.

It’s Otabek that slams the final door; as he grabs his motorcycle keys and speeds down the street. Yuri slumps on the sofa, taking their usual evening positon except there’s no legs tangled in his own. Their cat decides to come out of hiding sometime later, planting herself on his chest and purring loudly. He’s in a stupor. Too shocked to turn the lights on or fill the food bowl.

It’s even further in to the night before he dares to move; the only lights on the adjacent apartment block are the dim energy-savers illuminating the hallways. His phone vibrates in his back pocket, he recognises the tune seconds after it begins to sound. Katsudon. _Damn_ , he was meant to call him to talk about the costume for his free programme.

Wiping forgotten tears from his cheeks, he manages a croaky “Hello?” _Fuck_ , now he’ll know something is wrong and he’ll have to talk about it.

“Yuri? Hold on…” It appears the pig has the sense to move away from the bustle of the busy onsen. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m fine – did you hear back from the costume designer?”

“Yeah… she liked the idea of the mesh overlay.” He can hear the concern in Yuuri’s voice. _Fuck, I don’t want to talk about this._ “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Yuri sighs, holding the phone away from his face. The tears are threatening to return and _fuck Katsudon for that concerning I’ll-fly-to-Russia-if-you-need-me voice._ “I’m fine, honestly. It was just a silly argument.”

It’s Yuuri’s turn to sigh. “What about?”

“Nothing. Really. Just stuff.”

“Is Otabek there now?”

 _Damn_. “No, he’s gone out.”

There’s a uneasy kind of silence that drifts over both ends of the line. Neither knows what to say to the other.

“Do you need me?” Yuri is so shocked by the sudden offer that he bolts upright; sending the cat scarpering across the room.

“What?” He replies.

“I’ll come, if you need me, I mean.”

“Tch. I don’t need you, _Katsudon_.” He spits the insult. “Everything’s just fine.”

“Alright.” Yuuri’s tone is still far too soft, far too filled with love and concern that Yuri often feels like he doesn’t deserve. “I’ll be heading over there soon anyway.”

“Why?”

“Ah, it’s probably best I deliver your costumes in person. Plus, I’d like to see how your programmes are coming along.”

“Oh… okay.” The cat has returned; she’s finally plucked up enough courage to mew for food. “Okay, say hi to baldy and the brats for me.”

Yuuri chuckles, “Sure thing. And I won’t tell Viktor that you said that.”

“Nah, do. Film his reaction for me too.” Quiet falls over the line again, and the static is almost suffocating. “Yuuri?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

\--

Yuri’s finally musters the strength to feed the poor cat and then crawl in to their cold and empty bed when he hears the locks click in the front door. Otabek’s cold too, when he takes up the left-side of the mattress several minutes later. He smells like whiskey and cigarettes and it consumes the space between them.

Their fingers linger millimetres apart on top of the pillow, but there may as well be continents between them.

 

* * *

 

 

The next 54 days continue much like the 243rd; they start bickering, it blows out of proportion, one of them slams the door as they leave. It’s honestly a surprise that the neighbours haven’t complained yet.

Yuri has his skates and car keys in his hands when he throws the front door open to find Yuuri staring at him; brows raised and eyes filled with concern.

“Ah fuck.” Yuri mutters.

“What is it now?” Otabek snaps from the bedroom, voice still seething.

Yuri calls back, “Katsudon has come to visit.” and attempts to glare at Yuuri. It doesn’t seem to work though, as now he looks like he wants to hug him. He grabs the older man’s suitcase and dumps it inside the apartment. “We’re going out.” He called back to Otabek, trying not to match the angry tone in his voice.

\--

Yuri quickly makes his way out of the block and down the street, Yuuri silently following. “We’re fine.”

“Okay.”

“We are.”

“Okay.”

Yuri stops dead in his tracks and whips around. “We are.” He insists.

“Okay Yuri, you are.” The goddamn Katsudon isn’t even looking at him, what’s he eve- “Here?” He points to the small café across the street.

“Huh?”

“To eat, Yuri. I’ve been travelling since yesterday morning and would love to eat something decent.”

“Oh…” He shuffles and looks at his feet. The ground. That weird tree over there. Anything but Yuuri’s face. “Yeah… sure.”

Inside, Yuri has calmed down enough to resolve himself to fiddling with sugar packets and nudging the table leg with his foot. They eat together in a subdued sort of quiet, and he struggles to do anything more than play with his food. Surprisingly, it’s Yuri that breaks the silence.

“So…” He sighs, and dumps yet another sugar packet in to the tea that is surely far too sweet to drink now.

Yuuri pours himself a cup from the shared pot anyway. “You don’t have to talk about it. You’re not a kid anymore, Yuri. I’m not going to push your feelings out of you.”

“It’s fine, we’re fine-”

“Viktor and I fought a lot once too, y’know.” Yuuri cuts him off, and without a response, he continues. “Not long before we adopted the twins. It was stressful, and hard. We began to wonder whether we wanted different things.”

Yuri is quiet and still; the sugar packets are all empty. “Yeah.” He manages, after a time too long for either of them to be comfortable with. “Like I said though, we’re fine.”

Neither of them believe that.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s 12 days after Yuuri’s departure and doors have started slamming again. They’re both packing ahead of the upcoming Grand Prix tournaments, a silently agreed serenity has fallen over them. The last couple of weeks have been far easier than the last couple of months; of course, Yuuri’s presence helped with matters. Otabek was nothing if not a master of masks; simply able to hide his true emotion in the stoic expression that everyone had just gotten used to. But of course, Yuri was able to see through this just as easily as he was able to see the counting centimetres between their bodies each night. But still, things briefly appeared to be on the mend, with Otabek even using the low groan of his velvet voice to lull him to bed for the first time in 69 days.

It doesn’t feel easy to ask for normality, but Yuri does it anyway. “I’m glad you went with a short-sleeved costume for your free programme.”

His attempts are met with a stoic grunt. He inhales, “It’s a good idea, you usually go for something long-sleeved.”

Not even a grunt that time.

“So your short programme is on the seventeenth?”

“Yup.” Otabek barely graces Yuri with the response.

 “Okay, I can get there in time for-”

“I don’t need you there.” Otabek cuts him of without even looking at him.

Yuri’s too stunned to give nothing more than “Oh.” in response. Twenty minutes of trying to fold the same t-shirt but _fuck-shit-my hands are shaking too much_ , go by before he manages to say “So I’ll see you back here next weekend?”

Otabek huffs like it’s too much effort to engage in the conversation. “No, actually. I’m going home.”

 _Home_ , Yuri wonders, _does that mean here isn’t home?_

He clears his throat in a pathetic attempt to choke back tears, “Oh? You never said you were heading… _home_. Shall I meet you there?” He smiles up at Otabek, ignoring the lump in his throat and doing his best to make eye contact.

Otabek doesn’t even try. “No. It’s fine.”

“Ah…” Otabek leaves the room before Yuri can finish. “O… okay.”

Sometime later, Yuri would find himself staring at the bottom of the third bottle of wine one Thursday evening. He wonders if he’d just let things simmer down instead of pushing the matter, that they’d never have boiled over.

Yuri attempts to fold the t-shirt one last time before angrily throwing it across the room. He storms out in to the kitchen where Otabek is making cup of tea. He looks fine. Like he doesn’t have a problem, like they don’t have a problem.

“Otabek.” Yuri barks, arms crossed and a frown pressed deep into his cheeks.

Otabek doesn’t even give him the courtesy of a glance when he replies with a swift and sharp “What?”

It’s enough for Yuri’s resolve to break, and his voice catches in his throat before he can even get the first word out. “I… I don’t understand why you don’t want me there.”

“Where, Yuri?” He ends his name with an ‘i’ and not an ‘a’ for the first time in 918 days. It feels worse than falling face first on to freshly resurfaced ice.

By the time he finds the words to answer, Otabek is finished making his tea and he could swear he’s not the only one with tears brimming. His response is almost a whisper; “With you.”

Then the tea cup breaks. Shatters in shards across the kitchen floor like some kind of pre-emptive metaphor of their marriage. They’re both still, staring at the broken pieces with neither really sure what happened. With neither really sure how to pick up the pieces without hurting themselves even more. The metaphor continues with the slam of the front door. Fierce enough to resonate through the broken china.

Yuri manages to get all the way to the Anichkov Bridge before he breaks down; cold and broken-hearted on the side of the road. At their apartment, the cat has scarpered off again. Otabek cuts himself cleaning up the tea cup.

 

* * *

 

 

It took 747 days from the moment they first met until the moment Yuri realised that he was totally and utterly in love with Otabek. It would be another 467 before Otabek tells Yuri that he doesn’t love him anymore.

They fell together as if they were never meant to be parted. It's as easy as the first step on to the ice; crisp, sudden and more natural than breathing - as if man was never meant to walk on land and instead live on frozen water. 

Falling away is not as effortless. 

Yuri can remember skating on a pond far too late in to Spring, once. It took precisely two spins and three jumps before the ice gave way and he found himself plunged in to an almost-death. When it ends, it's a little like that. Except he'd rather fall in to the lake again.

He’s bending down feeding the cat when it happens. He’s cooing to her as she impatiently bats the spoon in a lost attempt to get the food in her bowl quicker. It’s almost as if Otabek doesn’t want to see Yuri when he says it; he’s standing behind him. Leaning against the fridge with his boots on and his helmet in his hands. Yuri can see everything but the look on his face reflected in the oven door.

“I want a divorce.” There’s no hint of hesitation; not even a crack in Otabek’s voice.

It feels exactly like falling in to the lake. In an instant, his breath is stolen from his lungs. It’s suffocating. The memory of the day plays out in his mind, as the cat licks the spoon in his hand; blissfully unaware of what was happening. He vaguely remembers knowing that he was going to fall through moments before he actually did. He remembers the ice-cold water seeping in through the sides of his skates and it was seconds before the shock rippled down to his bone.

He distinctly remembers how easy it was to let gravity pull him toward the bottom; how the fading light from the surface seemed to be peaceful instead of sending him panicking. He’s still not sure what made him snap out of it; the lull of the murky depths was altogether too seductive for anyone to resist. He doesn’t remember how he wound up on the shoreline; spluttering for air and shivering.

Like now, he doesn’t remember how he wound up on the kitchen floor, leggings tear-stained. The cat bowl long empty and the spoon forgotten in the grips of his hand. The sound of shuffling bags and clinking keys echo along with a distant and broken “I’m sorry, Yura.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Grand Prix Finale falls exactly 60 days after his marriage disintegrates... no. That's not the right word. It's too... fleeting. His marriage crashed. Burned. Was lit alight with the fury of a thousand suns. The divorce papers still lie stagnant on his kitchen table; picking up coffee stains and threatening to destroy him. It also marks 60 days since he last landed a quad. 

At the podium, he's left with a bronze medal for the first time in his life. It's bitter and cold and biting and God - he hates it. Otabek takes home gold. His face is slapped pink by pride and his hands finally stop shaking. Yuri doesn't notice that his costume is suddenly long-sleeved. 

Instead of being proudly displayed at the rink, the medal joins the divorce papers when he gets back to St. Petersburg. He spends the better part of two days staring at them; wondering whether he could choke on the medal or simply slit his throat with the paper.

Yuri announces a break from skating, and cancels all appearances for the next six months. Otabek takes home gold at Worlds’ too. Then again at Four Continents. The bronze medal continues to burn a hole in what used to be their kitchen table.

He remembers one Sunday morning. It had to have been the third Sunday of the month; the only day that both the ice rink and the ballet studio were closed so Otabek could wrangle him to sit down and have breakfast together. He’d cooked far too much turkey bacon; forgetting that Yuri was far too likely to make himself sick with the stack of maple pancakes instead. And of course, he did. So they sat, lounging at the kitchen table, feeding scraps to the cat and laughing at her excitement over _human food._

It was effortless. To sit together like that; Yuri’s feet on Otabek’s lap with his hands gently rubbing away years’ worth of brutality to break in pointes and skates. Yuri remembers the sun breaking through looming storm clouds, casting shadows and playing with the colours in Otabek’s hair, thinking; _yeah, I could spend the rest of my life like this._

There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of daylight now, even though it’s only a little after two in the afternoon. It’s been raining for four straight days. The water fills the windowpanes; masking him from the outside world. He notices a crack along the edge of the sill and realises that he’ll need to call the landlord instead of writing it on the ‘To-do’ list on the fridge.

\--

It’s 3 days later when Yuri takes his cat to Mila and Sara’s place. They both look at him like he’s that broken tea cup from months ago. He puts up a front though; rolling his eyes and lecturing them about the cat’s feeding schedule. And _not to fuck it up because she’s the most importing thing in his_ _life_ and then he’s given away by the hitch in his throat and the break in his voice. Then it’s him that’s breaking. All of him. His knees buckle and he’s sobbing on their kitchen floor instead of his own.

Sara moves his flight a couple of days, insisting that _Yuuri and Victor won’t mind_ , and that she’ll _call them straight away to let them know_.

Mila puts him to bed. Then slides in beside him. He hears Sara’s broken Japanese from the hall, then she slides in on the other side of him.

They stay like that until the morning. With Mila using angry Russian slang that neither of them can quite make out; ranting that she’s _going to fly to Kazakhstan and wring that bastard’s—_ wait, no. That word certainly wasn’t bastard and Yuri doesn’t think he wants to know what it was. Sara strokes his hair, singing soft Italian lullabies that he doesn’t understand but somehow does.

He’s not sure which one he needs more. But he knows he needs both.

\--

It’s another 3 days before he finally leaves for Japan. The girls insist on taking him straight to his gate at the airport; with Mila threatening the security guard in all her ferociousness to allow them through. Sara holds him tight. Mila holds him tighter.

They both say something about keeping up with him on Instagram; then exchange worried glances when he informs them he’s deleted the app. He insists it’s okay though, and that he just needs the break from it all _hence looking after the cat and getting on a flight to Japan._

They hug him again. And then once more before he gets on the plane. Sara cups his face in her hands and tells him she loves him. He cries until he lands in Tokyo, remembering someone else doing the exact same once upon a time ago.

 

* * *

 

 

They’ve known each other a little over four and a half years the day their divorce in finalised, and Yuri is determined to be as far away from any memory of their relationship that he can be on the 1,684th day since he met his soon-to-be ex-husband. Instead, he finds himself trudging up the steps of Park Güell. The sun has managed to fall in the exact same place in the sky as it did then.

It’s his own fault, really. He should have been more specific with the airport attendant when he said _just get me on the first fucking flight out of here_. Of course, that would be a direct to Barcelona.

It almost feels stupid to be up here alone. At least, it feels far too picturesque and romantic to be here with a heart that feels empty and heavy and dull all at once. He flicks open his Instagram for the first time in six months; forgetting to head Yuuri’s warning about not jumping back in to social media so quickly. He figures his fans could do with a life update so they at least know he’s not dead. Or at least he could shake those ridiculous rumours that he’s ‘depressed’ or whatever.

There’s a boy he doesn’t recognise. He’s standing next to Otabek and there’s rings on their fingers. It’s the hashtag that catches his eye and cuts his breath, though; #husband. The pain hits his heart before it hits his head.

 

_Oh._

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, thanks for reading :)
> 
> Catch me on tumblr: seeyounextlevel@tumblr.com
> 
> Ronnie x


End file.
